Adolf Hitler’s childhood home is a charming piece of property nestled in the middle of Braunau, a quiet Austrian town bordering Germany. The house looks solid and spacious and could soon end up on the market.

Hitler was born in Braunau 120 years ago and spent two years of his childhood in this house. The irony is that for the last three decades the house has been used as a workshop for the disabled – people Hitler would have murdered in his effort to create a race of supermen.

People with disabilities come here to weave carpets, make toys along with a variety of other products. All the handmade goods produced are then sold on the building's ground floor.

However, the charity is now planning to relocate, as the “inhabitants” of the property seem to have outgrown it. The question over who will get hold of the house is looming.

The landlord has refused to comment on the issue, but rumours say it could be sold by spring.

In the meantime, local authorities fear the property could end up in the hands of extreme right-wingers, who would then turn it into a shrine to Hitler's memory.

The mayor of Braunau said the town would like to buy the house to control its fate. Yet, it appears that as of now there is not enough money in the budget.

Anna Rosmus – a historian from another town where the Hitler family moved after living in Braunau, says she is sure that the neo-Nazis would not miss the opportunity to snap up the property if it becomes available.

"There are bus loads of Americans coming to these pilgrimage sites,” Rosmus says. “I have seen this happening for decades, this is where they flock while here, and money is not a problem for them. We can replace these kind of audiences with educated people, people who want to learn from the past."

Doctor Andreas Maislinger, chairman of the Austrian Holocaust memorial service, shares Rosmus’ view and says he would like to see this place become a museum, raising awareness about Nazi atrocities.

However, the mayor of the town has expressed his unwillingness for a museum, fearing Braunau could become a tourist destination solely associated with its most infamous son.

Just steps away from Hitler’s house and the nearby church where Hitler was baptized is a clothing shop which locals also consider to be a magnet for neo-Nazis.

"It should be closed. But it's difficult to close them because it is not forbidden," says Andreas Maislinger of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service.

Thoralf Meinl – the owner of the shop – is very cautious in his wording when it comes to talking about the shop’s political implications. He has already been to court to prove that the designs of the shop’s products have nothing to do with Nazi symbols.

"[People] come by car and drive 300 kilometers just to go shopping,” says Meinl. He makes sure to note that it is not because of the Nazi-like symbols that the clothes carry.

In the meantime, Braunau’s residents fear that their town could soon become a neo-Nazi mecca and people would start driving hundreds of kilometers just to view Hitler’s childhood house.

Boekoverzicht - Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian Army in August 1914 as a war volunteer. Fanatically devoted to the German cause between 1914 and 1918 Hitler served with distinction and sometimes reckless bravery, winning both classes of Iron Cross. Using memoirs, military records, regimental, divisional and official war histories as well as (wherever possible) Hitler's own words, this book seeks to reconstruct a period in his life that has been neglected in the literature. It is also the story of a German regiment (16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, or List Regiment), which fought in all the main battles on the Western Front. As a frontline soldier Hitler began his 'study' of the black art of propaganda; and, as he himself maintained, the List Regiment provided him with his 'university of life'. This is not only an account of the fighting, however. Some of the most profound influences on Hitler occurred on home leave or as a result of official wartime propaganda, which he devoured uncritically. His conversion frompassive pathological anti-Semitism began while invalided in Germany in 1916-17. The language of anti-Bolshevik 'Jewish virus' propaganda became Hitler's language, confirmed, as he saw it, by the 'infected' recruits to the List Regiment in 1918. Hitler is here presented less as the product of high-cultural forces than as an avid reader and gullible consumer of state propaganda, which fed his prejudices. He was a 'good soldier' but also a 'true believer' in fact and practice. It is no exaggeration to say that every military decision made by Hitler between 1939 and 1945 was in some way influenced or colored by his experiences with the List Regiment between 1914 and 1918.
Gedeeltelijke weergave - 2005 - 238 pagina's_________________
“I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, l hope you have the strength to start all over again.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

A famous 1914 photo showing a young Adolf Hitler in the thick of the crowd at a First World War rally – which the Nazis later used as a propaganda picture – was probably faked, German media said Thursday

Düsseldorf historian Gerd Krumeich has studied the picture and its history and concluded that Hitler was superimposed to lend credibility to the image of the Nazi leader as a patriot and a man of the people, daily Die Welt reported Thursday.

The photo was taken by Munich photographer Heinrich Hoffmann at a rally in support of war against the allies in Munich’s Odeonplatz on August 2, 1914.

But it was not until March 12, 1932 that it was published in the Nazi party newspaper the Illustrierte Beobachter, or "Illustrated Observer," the day before the presidential election, after Hitler’s opponents had attacked Hitler over his flight from military service in Austria-Hungary and questioned his patriotism.

The caption on the picture read: “Adolf Hitler, the German patriot … in the middle of the crowd stands with blazing eyes – Adolf Hitler.”

The photo went on to become a favourite Nazi propaganda picture, appearing with captions such as “Adolf Hitler: a man of the people.”

Hoffmann, who was one of the founders and the main supplier of pictures for the Nazi paper, always claimed he had discovered Hitler in the photo by chance after the future Führer visited his studio in 1929. Hitler had told him he was at the rally, Hoffmann said.

Hoffmann then dug out a glass picture negative he’d planned to throw away and found Hitler in the image.

“I only needed to search for a very short time, one standing there, yes, it’s him – his hair falls over the forehead,” Hoffmann once said. “His face cannot deceive – it is him.”

Until now, that version has been regarded as fact. The photo of the future Führer in Odeonplatz has been used countless times in newspapers, Hitler biographies and school books.

Most damningly, Krumeich found a different version of the picture in the Hoffmann photo archive in Bavaria. In that image, Hitler’s characteristic lock of hair over the forehead looks clearly different – suggesting the photo had been retouched.

The glass plate negative to the picture has never been found.

Krumeich has looked for other photos of the same rally both in archives and in newspapers and books. He noticed that other pictures of the event taken from different standpoints, including a picture taken by Hoffmann, do not show Hitler.

The picture is included in the new exhibition, “Hitler and the Germans – Nation and Crime,” which opens Friday. The caption on the picture mentions the doubts about its authenticity.

Hitler's heroism in Great War exaggerated
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Saturday, 12 March 2011

Adolf Hitler's claims to have been a heroic First World War soldier who "looked death in the eye" have been debunked in a new book which reveals that the Nazi leader's alleged military bravery was largely a product of party propaganda designed to win over the masses to his cause.

Hitler served as a messenger on the western front during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross for carrying dispatches. He wrote in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that the time in the trenches "was the happiest in my life" and claimed that he risked death "probably every day".

However, in a new book entitled Hitler's First War, the historian Thomas Weber has found evidence which shows that Private Hitler was often stationed outside the most dangerous areas of battle and was hardly ever in the "midst of bombardment", as he claimed.

Mr Weber, who also shows that the Iron Cross was routinely awarded to dispatch runners, reached his conclusion after examining pages of hitherto unstudied military documents and letters detailing the history of Hitler's Great War regiment, the 16th List Bavarian reserve infantry. Nazi propaganda has described the regiment as a unit teeming with student and graduate volunteers who would later go on to form the Nazi party. However, Mr Weber also reveals that a disproportionately high number of its recruits were Jewish.

The military documents confirm that Hitler's regiment underwent its baptism of fire in late October 1914 in a battle for the Belgian village of Gheluvelt. In his account of the conflict, Hitler claimed to have been the only survivor of his platoon. However, regimental records show that only 13 men in his company were killed in the battle.

Mr Weber argues that the myths about Hitler's First World War bravery were further exaggerated by his former regimental comrades who published fawning accounts of the tyrant's alleged heroism in popular books such as With Adolf Hitler in the Bavarian Infantry. Many children's book described him as "always one of the bravest soldiers in every battle".

Hitler's First War concludes that the heroism which was held to have characterised Hitler's war years was deliberately fabricated from 1925 onwards in the run-up to the Nazi leader's so-called "seizure of power" in 1933. "It was really then that the myth of the List regiment took centre stage in Hitler's rhetoric," he writes

Adolf Hitler's heroic exploits during the First World War were an invention of the Nazi propaganda machine, new research has revealed.
The Nazi leader served as a messenger on the Western Front during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross for carrying messages.
He claimed in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that he 'looked death in the eye' and risked his life 'probably every day' while he served as a messenger on the Western Front.
But a new book, Hitler's First War, by German historian Thomas Weber, reveals that Private Hitler was often stationed outside of the most dangerous areas and was rarely in the 'midst of the bombardment', as he claimed.
In the book Mr Weber shows that accounts of Hitler's bravery were deliberately fabricated by the National Socialists from 1925 onwards as the party built a cult of personality around their leader.
Mr Weber drew his conclusions after he examined military documents and letters detailing the history of the 16th List Bavarian reserve infantry, Hitler's unit during the 1914-1918 war.
Nazi propaganda described the the regiment as manned by eager student and graduate volunteers who would later form the nucleus of the Nazi party, but Mr Weber's research reveals that a large number of recruits were actually Jewish.
The documents confirm that the regiment first saw action in October 1914 in the village of Gheluvelt, Belgium. Hitler claimed to have been the only survivor of the engagement, but regimental accounts show that only 13 men in his company lost their.
Hitler's exploits in the war were further exaggerated by former comrades-in-arms who published accounts of his alleged valour in popular books, where he was described as 'always one of the bravest soldiers in every battle'.

All Reich, calm down! Hitler 'spent months living in Liverpool flat' that was later destroyed by the Luftwaffe
By JAYA NARAIN

Adolf Hitler spent five months in Liverpool, wandering around the city and relaxing in the Poste House pub, pint in hand.
He also enjoyed a sightseeing tour of London and was so fascinated by Tower Bridge that he bribed his way into the engine room so he could see the machinery at work.
The claims come from an author exploring a long-held theory that the 23-year-old Hitler shared a flat in the city before World War I.
In his book, The Hitlers of Liverpool, Mike Unger claims the future Fuhrer fled to Merseyside from Vienna, to avoid national service. He says Hitler stayed in a flat in Toxteth with his married half-brother Alois from November 1912 to April 1913

The flat was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombers during World War II.
Unger’s claims come under scrutiny in a BBC documentary which aims to uncover the truth or fiction behind the tale. The suggestion that Hitler lived in the city first appeared in the little-known memoirs of his sister-in-law Bridget Dowling.
Written in the 1930s as Hitler’s notoriety began to grow, My Brother-in-Law Adolf failed to find a publisher and many historians dismiss the manuscript as a ploy by her to make money from the infamous family name. In the documentary, Unger tells actor Paul McGann that he believes there is strong evidence to support the story.
Irish-born Bridget, who reverted to her maiden name, explains in her memoirs how she met Alois in her native Dublin where he was a waiter. She eloped with him to London where they married before settling in Liverpool.

On March 12, 1911 their only child, William Patrick, was born in the couple’s three-bedroom flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, Toxteth. According to the new Mrs Hitler, Alois was ‘volatile’ and a chronic gambler who was ‘always about to make his fortune’.
After a big win in 1912 he dreamed of building up his safety-razor business with his sister Angela’s husband so he sent travel money for them both to visit from Vienna.
But Adolf took the money and travelled over instead – to his half-brother’s fury as Alois and Adolf never got on.
At the time Adolf was practically destitute and working as a part-time labourer in Vienna.

His arrival in Liverpool prompted Alois to suspect his half-brother was trying to dodge conscription into the Austrian army. ‘He’s just a good for nothing,’ he allegedly told Bridget. According to her, Alois confessed: ‘Adolf has been hiding from the military authorities, consequently from the police, for the last 18 months. That’s why he came here to me. He had no choice.’

Bridget wrote that in his five months at their Toxteth home, Hitler was an unprepossessing and lazy guest.
‘Adolf took everything we did for granted and I’m sure would have remained indefinitely if he had had the slightest encouragement. After the first few weeks he would often come and sit in my cosy little kitchen playing with my two-year-old baby, while I was preparing our meals.’ She said her husband showed Adolf power plants, river cranes and the inside of ships and as soon as her brother-in-law knew his way around Liverpool he began disappearing by himself, not returning until late in the evening.
‘He said he was looking for a job, but since he knew only a few words of English and never left early in the morning, it was always my opinion that he just wandered about Liverpool.’ As the visit lengthened, relations between the two brothers became more and more strained to the point when, in April 1913, Alois allegedly bought his half-brother a ticket to Germany and put him on a train.
Adolf set up home in Munich, fought in the First World War and then began his climb up the political ladder by joining the German Workers’ Party, precursor of the Nazis.

The documentary, to be shown on BBC North West on Monday, interviews historian Professor Frank McDonough and Unger as they argue over the evidence.
Professor McDonough says that rather than idling around Liverpool, there is evidence that Hitler was actually in Vienna during those five months.

The English-language mini-series will follow Hitler from his life as a solider in World War One to his death in 1945.
CANNES - Two of the biggest names in German TV have teamed up to shoot a biography of Adolf Hitler.

our editor recommends
Film Movement Acquires Film Rights to 'Hitler's Children'MIPCOM 2012: Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright: Why Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ Is the Future of TVJan Mojto of Beta Film and Nico Hofmann of teamWorx announced Monday that they will adapt the biography Hitler's First War by historian Thomas Weber into an eight-part mini-series that traces Hitler's life from his time as a solider in World War I to his death in 1945.

The project, tentatively budgeted at between $20 million-$25 million, will be shot in English.

TeamWorx, Beta will co-produce along with Beta's production division EOS with Beta handling world sales. Weber, the historian Ralf Georg Reuth and Jonathan Steinberg, an expert on recent Jewish history, will serve as advisers for the TV series.

"We thought the time was right for a German look at Hilter, at his life," Mojto said, adding that eight years after Bernd Eichinger's and Oliver Hirschbiegel's Oscar-nominated feature Downfall, which Beta co-produced, about Hitler's final days, "we now go back to the origins."

"This will be a demystification of HItler, a look at how he created his own history and created myths that seduced the German people," said Hofmann. "The series will be a direct look at the biggest evil of this century: how it happened and where it came from."

Weber said the only way to get to the bottom of the influence Hitler had over so many Germans was by "taking Hitler's skills of self-invention seriously, his talents and weaknesses, his cold savagery but also his outright personal charm."

The producers say Hitler's First War will be closely based on historical research - "a documentary in drama" is how Hofmann describes it. The series will extend beyond Weber's book, which focuses solely on Hitler's life as a solider in World War I.

German writers Hark Bohm and Niki Stein are adapting Weber's book for the small screen. Stein recently wrote and directed the German TV movie Rommel, a look at the last seven months of the notorious World War II general, dubbed the "Desert Fox", which teamWorx and Beta co-produced.

Beta and teamworX plan to unveil the series to buyers at MIPCOM in 2014. They have announced the series two years in advance, Hofmann said, because of similar competing Hitler projects being developed in the U.S. and the U.K.

"We decided to get out there first, because we are already far along with our series - we have treatments for seven of the eight episodes finished and are well on the way to beginning production," he explained.

Hitler's First War is only the latest, if most ambitious, of historical dramas to come out of the Beta-teamWorx production partnership. In the past 12 years, the two companies have jointly produced 26 mini-series and TV movies, most set in Germany's recent past. They include the Bafta-nominated The Sinking of the Laconia; Dresden - The Inferno, about the bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II; and Hindenburg about the dramatic last flight of the doomed German airship.

Beta and teamWorx' line-up at MIPCOM this year includes the one-hour biopic Rommel starring Ulrich Tukur (The Lives of Others), Generation War, a three-part Band of Brothers-style series which follows the lives of five German friends from 1941 through the devestation of World War II and the Holocaust; and The Tower, a two-part adaptation of the novel by Uwe Tellkamp which looks at the final decade in the history of communist East Germany.

A previously unknown postcard sent by Adolf Hitler when he was a soldier in World War I has been uncovered in a European history project.

Hitler's postcard, sent in 1916 when he was recovering from a war wound, was found in Munich, Germany.

Oxford University is providing expert advice to the Europeana 1914-1918 project which runs history roadshows.

When the postcard was identified, the university's Dr Stuart Lee said he "felt a shudder run through me".

"I found it hard to believe that at a local event to record ordinary people's stories, I was seeing a previously unknown document in Hitler's own hand," said Dr Lee.
'Unsettling'

He says that from his previous work as a medievalist he was used to "holding incredibly rare documents", but he says there was "something unsettling about this".

"I was touching something that Hitler had touched. Everything rushes through your mind," he said.

The postcard was sent to Karl Lanzhammer, a despatch runner in the same regiment, when the 27-year-old Hitler was recuperating from injuries away from the front.

Dr Thomas Weber, an authority on Hitler during World War I, says the other correspondence previously known to have been written by Hitler at this time was also sent to fellow soldiers in his regiment.

He says it suggests the idea of the wartime army as Hitler's "surrogate family".

"Every other soldier would have been writing back home," he says.

The postcard, which talks about going to the dentist, also indicates that Hitler wanted to get back to the front - which Dr Weber says was "highly unusual" at this stage of the war, even among the most patriotic.

Dr Weber, from Aberdeen University's history department, says it reveals an urge to return to the "closest social network" that he had known since the death of his mother.

It also contains a spelling mistake in the German word for immediately - spelling it as "soffort" rather than "sofort".

Dr Weber says such glimpses of the young Hitler are extremely rare - not least because when he was in power, Hitler "diligently destroyed" many documents about his earlier life.

Previous studies by Dr Weber have revealed Hitler's attempts to "re-invent" his wartime experience - with the historian showing how a Jewish officer had recommended Hitler for a medal.

The original recipient of the postcard died in March 1918 - but the card ended up in the hands of a collector, whose son brought it to a family history roadshow event in Munich, as part of the Europeana 1914-1918 project.

It was authenticated by experts and after being digitally recorded, the postcard was returned to its private owner.

This history project is gathering evidence of individual people's stories from World War I - in preparation for events marking the centenary of the war's outbreak.

It wants to preserve digitally wartime photographs, letters and documents held privately by families - with fears that much of this information might be lost.
Preserving evidence

The history project, developed from an original scheme at Oxford University, is funded by the European Union and is collecting material in a number of European countries.

As well as in Britain and Germany, there have been roadshow events in Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Denmark, with people invited to bring in their memorabilia and personal stories.

This has included items which illustrate personal stories of survival in war.

A Bible carried by a German soldier, Kurt Geiler, was brought in by his grandson. It still carried the shrapnel which had been embedded in its pages - from a grenade which had killed soldiers who slept beside him.

"I am here to show how a family story can actually become part of the collective memory of Europe," said the grandson, Markus Geiler.

A 100-year-old man, Slavko Zupan, brought in a wartime object to a roadshow in Slovenia - a wooden cross carved by Russian prisoners of war, who had used such craftwork to trade with locals. It has been in his family since 1916.

The project, which includes the British Library as partner, has gathered 45,000 objects, including personal testimonies.
Passing generations

Joan Almond, aged 85, brought in her father's type-written account of war to a roadshow in Preston.

She said: "I think the war must have haunted him a lot, especially when you read his account. My mother used to encourage him to write down his experiences and this seemed to have a calming influence."

Her father, John Stafford, provided a graphic account of the horrors of war, when he was injured at the Somme.

"That explained why my wounds burned so intensively. Eventually the maggots spread over my leg from hip to knee and then settled on the other leg...

"Occasionally I looked at their swelling rhythm, then finally turned away in disgust."

There is also a sense of gathering wartime information before it is lost. One unique set of family photographs collected for the project had been rescued from a skip.

"People pass their stories down their families, and in Europeana we have found the means to preserve them for future generations, and make them universally accessible," said Jill Cousins, Europeana's executive director.

Henry Tandey spared wounded Adolf Hitler's life in First World War - and changed the world forever

the future Victoria Cross winner's moment of compassion for a fellow human being unwittingly unleashed a monster on the world

Standing in his wrecked home, Henry Tandey watched his city burn and heard the screams of hundreds of men, women and children after an attack by 515 German bombers in wave after sickening wave.

The brave air raid warden had spent the previous 10 hours fighting his way into blazing houses, rescuing victims and pulling out bodies as the Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Coventry factories powering Britain’s war effort.

But nothing Henry did that night could ease his sickening sense of guilt.

He could have stopped this. Saved the 560-plus lives lost that night, all the horror wreaked by the Nazis and the 60million lives lost in the Second World War.

He could have changed the course of history. If only...

Two years earlier Henry Tandey, 49, had discovered that HE was the man who let Adolf Hitler live.

In the dying moments of the First World War 22 years earlier, he had pointed his rifle at a wounded German soldier trying to flee a French battlefield. Their eyes met and Henry lowered his gun. The German nodded in thanks then disappeared.

In that moment of compassion for a fellow human being, Henry, then 27, let 29-year-old Corporal Adolf Hitler walk free.

Free to become the most reviled dictator and mass murderer of all time.

“I didn’t like to shoot at a wounded man,” he said in 1940. “But if I’d only known who he would turn out to be... I’d give 10 years now to have five minutes of clairvoyance then.”

It was the biggest “what if?” in history and, until his death in 1977 at the age of 86, Henry had to live with the stigma of being “The Man Who Didn’t Shoot Hitler”.

In fact, he was a hero – the most highly decorated British private soldier of the First World War, holder of the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Conduct Medal, Military Medal, five mentions in dis­patches and three wound stripes.

Now a new book by author and historian David Johnson has set out to make sure Henry is remembered for his astonishing gallantry.

David, who lives in Warwickshire close to Henry’s old home, spent years of research to get to the truth.

He said: “Britain’s most decorated private soldier sparing the life of Adolf Hitler makes a great story. It’s accepted by some but disputed by many others.

"The truth may never be absolutely known. But for Henry Tandey to be known more for his alleged compassion towards Hitler than for his undoubted bravery seemed to me to do him a disservice.”

The book has won praise from the former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt, who served in the same regiment as Henry, the Green Howards.

He said: “Henry Tandey will always be remembered as the most decorated private soldier of the First World War who, with one squeeze of the trigger, might have prevented the Second World War. Dr Johnson has managed to winnow fact from fiction and produce the definitive life history of this remarkable British soldier – an ordinary man who did extraordinary things.”

For 20 years Henry had no idea he had missed the chance to kill Hitler. But in 1938 he received a shocking phone call from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who had just returned from a fruitless meeting with Hitler to try to talk him out of war.

Chamberlain had been invited to Hitler’s hilltop retreat in Bavaria and shown a reproduction of a famous painting called The Menin Crossroads.

Adolf Hitler - World War One
Spared: Corporal Adolf Hitler (front left) during World War I

An Italian war artist had captured soldiers of the Green Howards evacuating the wounded at the Battle of Ypres in 1914 – with Henry Tandey in the foreground carrying a comrade on his back.

Incredibly, Hitler recognised him as the man who spared him four years later on September 28, 1918.

He told Chamberlain: “That man came so near to killing me I thought I should never see Germany again. Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire as those English boys were aiming at us”.

Hitler asked Chamberlain to convey his best wishes and gratitude to Henry, whose response to the phone call isn’t known.

But as David points out in the book: “He would surely have reflected on how that act of compassion had been repaid.”

Henry gave only a few interviews after the story broke.

He admitted he never shot wounded, unarmed or retreating Germans, but did everything he could to kill them in battle.

In 1939 he told the Coventry Herald: “Did I see Hitler? I had the sights of my rifle on most of their gun crews, but whether I hit any of them I shall never know. I’ve wondered since how near I came to knocking down the future dictator.”

David’s research found remarkable similarities between Hitler and Henry. Both served on the Western Front, both were wounded several times and both were decorated for bravery.

Henry was born in Leamington Spa in 1891, the son of an ex-soldier. He was a hotel boiler engineer before enlisting in the Green Howards in 1910. When war broke out he joined the British Expeditionary Force in France. Henry arrived in Ypres on October 14, 1914, taking part in the first bloody battle there and helping to evacuate the wounded at the Menin Crossroads – immortalised in that painting.

He was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, as was Hitler. In August 1918 at the Battle of Cabrai, Henry won the DCM for storming an enemy post with two comrades, killing several Germans and capturing 20 more.

A fortnight later he earned the Military Medal rescuing wounded men under fire and leading a bombing party into German trenches. And he won the VC on September 28, 1918 at the Battle of Marcoing. When his platoon was halted by heavy machine-gun fire Henry crawled forward to locate the gun post and led comrades to destroy it. He then rebuilt a plank bridge crossing the canal, again under a hail of bullets.

Later that evening he and eight comrades were surrounded by Germans and apparently doomed. But Henry, though badly wounded, led a bayonet charge so fierce that 37 of the enemy were driven into the hands of his company. It was the day he spared Hitler.

Menin Crossroads After Conservation
In the picture: Hitler recognised Henry from the painting Menin Crossroads After Conservation

Green Howards Museum

The story is still doubted by some. But in 1997 Major Roger Chapman of the Green Howards said: “We have no doubts he did meet Hitler and allowed him to live, an act of compassion he regretted 22 years later.”

Back home in Blighty, Henry re-enlisted in the Army a day after his discharge in 1919. Refusing promotion he served in Egypt, Gibraltar and Turkey before finally leaving in 1926.

He moved to Coventry, married twice but never had children and was a security guard at the Triumph Motor Company. When he died his ashes were buried in the British Cemetery at Marcoing in France, alongside fallen comrades and close to the spot where he spared Hitler.

As the bombs rained down on Coventry in 1940 Henry showed the same bravery that had won him a chestful of medals. He became an ARP Warden because his old wounds stopped him enlisting again – but by God, he certainly tried.

“He still saw himself as a soldier and wanted to do his bit,” said David.

“And maybe he also felt that if he’d spared Hitler’s life he had a responsibility to try and put things right.”
•The Man Who Didn’t Shoot Hitler (The Story of Henry Tandey VC and Adolf Hitler, 1918) by David Johnson (The History Press, £9.99 paperback).

Henry Tandey spared wounded Adolf Hitler's life in First World War - and changed the world forever

the future Victoria Cross winner's moment of compassion for a fellow human being unwittingly unleashed a monster on the world

Standing in his wrecked home, Henry Tandey watched his city burn and heard the screams of hundreds of men, women and children after an attack by 515 German bombers in wave after sickening wave.

The brave air raid warden had spent the previous 10 hours fighting his way into blazing houses, rescuing victims and pulling out bodies as the Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Coventry factories powering Britain’s war effort.

But nothing Henry did that night could ease his sickening sense of guilt.

He could have stopped this. Saved the 560-plus lives lost that night, all the horror wreaked by the Nazis and the 60million lives lost in the Second World War.

He could have changed the course of history. If only...

Two years earlier Henry Tandey, 49, had discovered that HE was the man who let Adolf Hitler live.

In the dying moments of the First World War 22 years earlier, he had pointed his rifle at a wounded German soldier trying to flee a French battlefield. Their eyes met and Henry lowered his gun. The German nodded in thanks then disappeared.

In that moment of compassion for a fellow human being, Henry, then 27, let 29-year-old Corporal Adolf Hitler walk free.

Free to become the most reviled dictator and mass murderer of all time.

“I didn’t like to shoot at a wounded man,” he said in 1940. “But if I’d only known who he would turn out to be... I’d give 10 years now to have five minutes of clairvoyance then.”

It was the biggest “what if?” in history and, until his death in 1977 at the age of 86, Henry had to live with the stigma of being “The Man Who Didn’t Shoot Hitler”.

In fact, he was a hero – the most highly decorated British private soldier of the First World War, holder of the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Conduct Medal, Military Medal, five mentions in dis­patches and three wound stripes.

Now a new book by author and historian David Johnson has set out to make sure Henry is remembered for his astonishing gallantry.

David, who lives in Warwickshire close to Henry’s old home, spent years of research to get to the truth.

He said: “Britain’s most decorated private soldier sparing the life of Adolf Hitler makes a great story. It’s accepted by some but disputed by many others.

"The truth may never be absolutely known. But for Henry Tandey to be known more for his alleged compassion towards Hitler than for his undoubted bravery seemed to me to do him a disservice.”

The book has won praise from the former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt, who served in the same regiment as Henry, the Green Howards.

He said: “Henry Tandey will always be remembered as the most decorated private soldier of the First World War who, with one squeeze of the trigger, might have prevented the Second World War. Dr Johnson has managed to winnow fact from fiction and produce the definitive life history of this remarkable British soldier – an ordinary man who did extraordinary things.”

For 20 years Henry had no idea he had missed the chance to kill Hitler. But in 1938 he received a shocking phone call from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who had just returned from a fruitless meeting with Hitler to try to talk him out of war.

Chamberlain had been invited to Hitler’s hilltop retreat in Bavaria and shown a reproduction of a famous painting called The Menin Crossroads.

Adolf Hitler - World War One
Spared: Corporal Adolf Hitler (front left) during World War I

An Italian war artist had captured soldiers of the Green Howards evacuating the wounded at the Battle of Ypres in 1914 – with Henry Tandey in the foreground carrying a comrade on his back.

Incredibly, Hitler recognised him as the man who spared him four years later on September 28, 1918.

He told Chamberlain: “That man came so near to killing me I thought I should never see Germany again. Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire as those English boys were aiming at us”.

Hitler asked Chamberlain to convey his best wishes and gratitude to Henry, whose response to the phone call isn’t known.

But as David points out in the book: “He would surely have reflected on how that act of compassion had been repaid.”

Henry gave only a few interviews after the story broke.

He admitted he never shot wounded, unarmed or retreating Germans, but did everything he could to kill them in battle.

In 1939 he told the Coventry Herald: “Did I see Hitler? I had the sights of my rifle on most of their gun crews, but whether I hit any of them I shall never know. I’ve wondered since how near I came to knocking down the future dictator.”

David’s research found remarkable similarities between Hitler and Henry. Both served on the Western Front, both were wounded several times and both were decorated for bravery.

Henry was born in Leamington Spa in 1891, the son of an ex-soldier. He was a hotel boiler engineer before enlisting in the Green Howards in 1910. When war broke out he joined the British Expeditionary Force in France. Henry arrived in Ypres on October 14, 1914, taking part in the first bloody battle there and helping to evacuate the wounded at the Menin Crossroads – immortalised in that painting.

He was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, as was Hitler. In August 1918 at the Battle of Cabrai, Henry won the DCM for storming an enemy post with two comrades, killing several Germans and capturing 20 more.

A fortnight later he earned the Military Medal rescuing wounded men under fire and leading a bombing party into German trenches. And he won the VC on September 28, 1918 at the Battle of Marcoing. When his platoon was halted by heavy machine-gun fire Henry crawled forward to locate the gun post and led comrades to destroy it. He then rebuilt a plank bridge crossing the canal, again under a hail of bullets.

Later that evening he and eight comrades were surrounded by Germans and apparently doomed. But Henry, though badly wounded, led a bayonet charge so fierce that 37 of the enemy were driven into the hands of his company. It was the day he spared Hitler.

Menin Crossroads After Conservation
In the picture: Hitler recognised Henry from the painting Menin Crossroads After Conservation

Green Howards Museum

The story is still doubted by some. But in 1997 Major Roger Chapman of the Green Howards said: “We have no doubts he did meet Hitler and allowed him to live, an act of compassion he regretted 22 years later.”

Back home in Blighty, Henry re-enlisted in the Army a day after his discharge in 1919. Refusing promotion he served in Egypt, Gibraltar and Turkey before finally leaving in 1926.

He moved to Coventry, married twice but never had children and was a security guard at the Triumph Motor Company. When he died his ashes were buried in the British Cemetery at Marcoing in France, alongside fallen comrades and close to the spot where he spared Hitler.

As the bombs rained down on Coventry in 1940 Henry showed the same bravery that had won him a chestful of medals. He became an ARP Warden because his old wounds stopped him enlisting again – but by God, he certainly tried.

“He still saw himself as a soldier and wanted to do his bit,” said David.

“And maybe he also felt that if he’d spared Hitler’s life he had a responsibility to try and put things right.”
•The Man Who Didn’t Shoot Hitler (The Story of Henry Tandey VC and Adolf Hitler, 1918) by David Johnson (The History Press, £9.99 paperback).